Saturday, April 22, 2006

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I am so friggin tired of the shit that gets said about people in the ministry! Plenty of times it seems like a congregation will only support their pastor and other leaders so far financially, depending on their view of how much work he's doing. Of course, most congregants assume that their leaders do minimal amounts of work and support them as such. I've heard it said that they sit around all day just shooting the breeze and praying a lot.

Now here comes my very personal frustration. People's perception of their monetary struggles and of J's Missions Director position. We are living on 40% of what we need to make it monthly. Other people don't know what that means. Well here's the breakdown. We are making roughly $ 1200/ month (that was including my job, I quit, that brought in $300-500/mo). Our expenses:-$840 rent-$150 preschool-$140 food (if I'm lucky)-$70 phone-$100 gas, toiletries, diapers-$80 credit cards (which were all run up to help ends meet)-$80 electric and gas-$350 tithing/missionariesGrand total of $1810 and all of these figures are on the lower end. Oh yeah and we also have to raise $2,000 about every 3 months or so for a missions trip that Jason takes. I'm sick and tired of people assuming that J does fricking squat all day. The man doggedly chases the best plane fares, meets with many people about missions-related subjects, comes up with and coordinates fundraisers, and designs newsletters and website stuff. Makes sure all our missionaries and okay financially and otherwise. Yet some people continue to have the gall to think he sits on his ass all day and helps me out with the kids. Part of the reason I quite my before-mentioned job was because J wasn't getting everything accomplished that he needed to on a daily basis. Missions related stuff was suffering.I hate it when other people say, "Things are really tight this month," then some people base their tithing on that. These are people who have savings accounts with money in them and health benefits and an actual house and a car that wasn't donated to them. Some people would (and do) criticize us for giving so much to church and not getting a "real" job. If the furthering of the Word didn't matter so much to us I would agree with them. Also the preschool cost has always been covered and she wouldn't be there if God hadn't strongly told me to bless R in that way. It just pisses me off that following closely to God's will affords us (and other church leaders) so much criticism. Can you tell I'm a little pissed about this? People criticize our pastor for taking a year-long sabbatical with full pay, citing that he does so little. Who the hell are they to talk about doing so little?Yes, this is unjustly angry and some people are going to be offended, but I'm tired of all the pot shots taken at J and all ministry leadership. Really fricking sick of it. Comments?